Yeah, it was a shame. I remember hearing that the code for the game was a real mess, and after how much of a dumpster fire GTA 4's PC release was, I guess they decided to just skip it. It wasn't a great time to be a Rockstar fan on PC. Glad they turned things around with Max Payne 3 which was a really solid port. I just wish they'd do away with the superfluous social club.
@@airslashe9375Ngl i got a red dead at goodwill for 2$ poster and everything and a xbox 360 for 30$ with a controller i lucked out but man the aiming is so jank😭
@@FR4M3Sharmait's a great game overall with lots to do and experience, but don't expect too much from the story itself. Half of it is John saying "can I see my family now?" to everyone he meets.
@@gaanxd It's not at all a surprising story save for a couple minutes of its conclusion. Most of the game is just hitting the left trigger to lock on to targets with the accuracy of a terminator and pulling right trigger to act on that, with obstructions to firing rarely even present. The period of time you spend familiarizing/realizing how little nuance there is to the gameplay outside of the tertiary shit like hogtying happens easily inside of an hour. This game barely benefits from being forgotten.
RDR is amazing on Xenia, I managed to complete the entire game at 4K resolution + 60fps on a RTX 4090, there were only dips in certain missions which was probably about 5% of my playthrough
the graphics in RDR aged beautifully and it scales so well at 4k when emulated. its such a huge step up from the 360 with how its rendered that with those quality improvements alone, it still feels like a remaster
Yeah, I don't know. The polygons are so obvious at 4k it hurts. Would be interesting to see a 720p with an extreme form of AA to smooth things out tho.
The only noticable improvement is shadows as those look to scale with resolution but even then they're too sharp for my liking. I prefer soft shadows rather than extremely sharp shadows. Not the same thing as low resolution shadows
Great video as always Alex! Tried RDR on Xenia some years ago, loved tinkering with it. Slight correction: RAGE's animation system is not Euphoria driven. Natural Motion Euphoria is a physicalised animation system that 'kicks in' when NPC's are hit with impact (horse, bullet, rope, etc). Basically they're 'active ragdolls', but with a simulated 'muscle and instinct/self-preservation' ai system, in fancy tech terms the concept is called: 'Dynamic Motion Synthesis'. Euphoria isn't active when the character is just walking or anything else. That 'heavy feeling' is because of R*'s strict use of animation priority and tweaking variables to make it feel heavy. Table Tennis for instance didn't include Euphoria, GTA IV was it's first use. It was really impressive at the time, and in some ways it still feels more 'next gen' then actual next gen games today for how sophisticated and dynamic it feels, especially with it's impressively detailed collision mesh, the number of characters simulated at the same time, running on such old hardware. There is a Eurogamer article on the whole thing and why it's rarely used. (I'm a big fan of the tech since it early reveal in 2006/2007, and hoped it would end up in more games, which it never did. Although Ubisoft La Forge has been working on some impressive physics based animation tech. You should check out their neural network animation tech demos and papers. Can't send a link because of YT comments unfortunately). Keep up the great work!!
you should definitely give it another run today, experiencing RDR1 on better res and FPS really make the Euphoria ragdolls shine and made me realise that it was Rockstar's peak tbh, neither Max Payne 3 nor GTAIV was as complex with the procedural active ragdolls like RDR1. Can I ask what you mean by animation priority? I just dont understand why other games that are also animation based for movement just didnt feel as heavy unless it's a deliberate design choice. RDR2 definitely suffered the most of it. Would be interesting to know your thoughts on RDR2 as well since you sound like you know what you're talking about, and RDR2 actually had all the NM Euphoria parameters that were pretty much left empty on vanilla, but modders have made strides in implementing complex active ragdolls that transform the game. Recent developments in WERO's ragdoll overhaul has made RDR2's euphoria a genuine contender against RDR1 which was as good as we've gotten from NaturalMotion.
@@Jupa Animation priority is a deliberate design choice, meaning sacrificing input response for weighty animations that cannot be cancelled. You could make characters respond more quickly by tweaking values, but Rockstar deliberately chose presentation above responsive for immersion sake. Combining this with Euphoria's active ragdoll systems, which is deeply embedded into its implementation of Bullet physics engine (an open source solution) creates more possibility for emergent moments, which most dev's still haven't matched from a collision calculation complexity standpoint. For instance, in RDR2 you could hit your head on a tree branch, with quite accurate collision modeling from just one random tree. Thats technically quite amazing still. I'm usually not a big fan of animation priority in games, but the way Rockstar utilizes this to generate small emergent accidents is really impressive and underrated in my book. I personally wish games would lean more into this physicalised accuracy, instead of spending all that budget on incredibly looking games, but in reality are rather static from a interaction/possibility-space standpoint. These kinds of underlying simulation complexities are much harder/riskier to develop/invest in, as not every game needs such sophisticated collision modeling and simulational reactivity. Cyberpunk 2077, for example, looks incredible from a rendering fidelity standpoint, just leagues ahead of the competition. But their underlying physicalised simulation is incredibly rudimentary. (Again, really difficult to pull off, especially of you're base tech is not originally build for these kinds of simulational game-logic and collision systems). Something I wish Rockstar would pull a Carmack and just open sourced their tech, just so the other developers and the industry as a whole could learn from it. And raise the standard for collision complexity in games in general. Looking ahead: Luckily, R&D branches like Ubisoft's La Forge tech team are actually trying to push stuff like this. Instead of mainly focusing on rendering leaps, they're focusing on simulational leaps, like physicalised animation and reactive environments with simplistic chemistry logic (instead of just Newtonian physics, basically gravity, like we're able to do for the last 20 years). And if you read their papers and watch their demo's, they're actually trying to make their tech universally compatible with multiple physics Middleware like Havok, Physx or Bullet. My personally hope is, that after Raytracing is normalized in general game-development, that next frontier is pushing physics stuff like this, (physicalised, reactive and adaptive animations and simulation fidelity)
@@JorisWeerts1 I think, other than R*, Capcom has really amazing collision dection and physics. Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Street Fighter have some insanely accurate hit/hurt boxes, weighted and impactful movement, and realistic collision interactions between player, enemy, and environment. From the way zombies fall down the stairs and trip over tables in RE2 remake, to the hunter rolling between a monsters legs in MH, or the way Leon can throw a grenade at a flying axe in RE4.
@@karadanianoII was talking about both, this comment was made before the game released on switch and which of the 2 emulators run better is usually decided on a per game basis. in this case it was ryujinx that ran better in rdr1, sometimes it could reach almost double the framerate of xenia in cutscenes. though as a mild downgrade you lose out on the sharpness that comes from MSAA on the 360 version
I played this game at a locked 1080p, 40fps on Xenia with a fan-made patch. It was so good I ended up buying RDR2 in the next Steam sale. Edit - I was on a laptop with a Ryzen 9 5900HS, an RTX 3060 laptop GPU (80W TDP), and 16 GB of RAM.
Not really, it just built on what GTA 4 already achieved with its open world. Rockstar were ahead of the game, and still are, as most open world games are nowhere near as interesting to walk around as GTA 4 which just turned 15.
i dont like the term ahead of time. they just gave effort and soul into their game which lead it to be a timeless classic which cannot be said about the modern industry where they just try to complete games as fast as possible to sell they dont care about quality anymore
@@DriveCancelDCthe physics systems in gta 4 are still incredible, few games since have really topped it, including gta 5, I think they reduced the complexity to get gta 5 to run on the 360 and ps3, more of the frametime rendering budget had to be used on graphical fidelity instead of physics calculations.
It's tied to the framerate btw, the animation speed up. PSI-OPS the mindgate conspiracy breaks over a spesific fps basically 100fps, this game probably breaks over 120fps. has nothing to do with vsync or whether the cpu or gpu is limited. It has something to do with the calculations accuracy over a certain speed due to whatever equations they are using. turning on vsync can fix it because it limits the framerate to the screen and shortens the descrepency in the calculation results. Just thought I should mention it because this videos wording makes it seem like its unknown. I want people to understand the most common reason.
@@executable3 Yeah I Like DF alot, I just was Clarifying cause I'm an Enthusiast and I Mod old games all the time to get them working. There are other reasons too but frame rate and calculation error is the most common. Just like to share my knowledge. 🙂
Maybe it says a lot about me but DF video upload= highlight of my day. Bathe me with DF's videos, be it performance analysis, port reviews or nostalgic discussions!
Who else watching this after the new Red Dead Redemption trailer launched. Bruh I was skeptical to play the game on emulator but now that Rockstar games confirmed no PC port coming I'm just gonna enjoy the game in Emulator with even better experience.
RDR has a color grading that is still unmatched by any game since. The sky color, clouds, fog and how they all blend together with the fields into the horizon. You squint a little and it's almost a real video. RDR2 looks 'better' in a lot of ways, but the color grading felt more "cinematic" and "fantastical" than the 'real' that RDR feels.
@@KimJongUn_DPRK Control panel sharpening does wonders for clarity but it doesn't do anything about the ghosting unfortunately. Though combining TAA with FXAA seems to eliminate a lot of the trails for some reason
All this RDR talk has been a blessing for trophy hunters. I just started playing the game a few weeks ago (what a masterpiece!!) and getting the online trophies has been easier than I thought. There's still a good chunk of players around.
"masterpiece' Yea sure bud, this game is far from a masterpiece. The successor of it though, saying masterpiece even for a million times doesn't suffice its beauty.
You can always count on DF to make videos really worth watching like this one. I was recently looking into emulating RDR so this will come in handy for sure. Appreciate it.
@@cts006 thats not the point Emulators are being attacked by Sony Microsoft and Nintendo due to these companies assume everyone is pirating which isnt the case and isnt why these emulators were created in the first place. so youtubers like Digital Foundry that have a influential following can help by showcasing piracy isnt the way to go to help these emulators survive. look what happen to skyline a young switch emulator for Android out of Fear Nintendo would go after them due to high users pirating amd the fact Nintnedo filed multiple DMCA for lockpick snd its alternative. skyline shut down. if linus tech tipscan sow the dumping process and many other youtubers that focus on technical gaming why cant digital foundry people
@@matthewjuarbe5826 mean almost everyone is pirating these games but tell yourself what you need to. I don't see a problem with it considering most of the people downloading ps3/360 games bought them at some point anyway. Also it's really just Nintendo going after emulators, Sony and microsoft don't seem to care.
Played it at 30 FPS at 720p on my 1650 super a couple months ago. Definitely worth playing even if you don't have a high end pc. Excited to replay it with my 3080 ti.
So glad to hear it works that way! I played at 4K/60+ but I have a 5800X3D/4090, which of course I realize is stupidly expensive. But I'm a firm believer that you can thoroughly enjoy games with a lot less. I'm so happy to know that emulation has finally caught up and allows for people to enjoy this game without having to buy the original hardware. It has aged very, very well.
And now just a month later, the game runs even better out the gate on Yuzu and Ryujinx than Xenia! Emulation is truly one of the greatest achievements in gaming.
@@racingjets1 Just finished my playthrough on the Xenia emulator, it was just as great as in 2010. 60 fps was nice as well. Gonna plow through Undead Nightmare now which I also enjoyed when it released. Honestly the emulator worked so well I don't think a re-release is needed.
@@DetectiveMikeHunt. The announcement was a re-release for nintendo switch and PS4. If you want to play it on PC I would highly recommend the Xenia emulator, you can get a smooth fps which makes the experience much better.
@@christianmiller6849if it was 30 I could see it just being a direct port with a slight res bump for switch because it's so underpowered but for PS4 there's nothing to justify a direct port
Going online for the first time in 2010, meeting new players, joining a posse and exploring Tall Trees in the dead of night. Snow falling, finding the small cabin in the Forrest where the cougars were. Such magical times.
Thanks for the coverage. I completed this game some months ago in Xenia canary. Things that I couldn't do back then in my friend's 360 lmao. Stellar experience, I would say and the game didn't overstay its welcome at all.
To be fair, John has some of the absolute worst opinions on DF. He seems to care about complete and utter image stability at the cost of clarity and fps. An RDR1 port would probably run too well so he couldn't complain about it not having a 30fps cap and higher motion blur shutter speed.
@@AJ-xv7oh AAA companies are terrible at coming up with new IPs. All they want are GaaS games with MTX-riddled multiplayers. I'd rather get "£70 remakes" of beloved games that are stuck on old hardware, instead of garbage GaaS games.
I love his goofy ass but yeah he would say some shit like "oh boy ecco the dolphin 3 DX adventure 2 from the genesis is getting a remaster and its looking FANTASTIC" and trash a RDR1 remake
Excellent video! Crazy how good RDR still looks. I wonder how it looks on Steam Deck since that’s probably where I’ll replay it. Also good to know to use Xenia (vs RPCS3) for this particular title.
Thank you so much this is by far my favorite game and I really wanted to play on pc. I really hope the remake is real so more people can experience why we all fell in love with this series decades ago.
Been replaying games from my PS3 library over the last couple years in RPCS3, and it's amazing how well games from that era hold up when you fix the resolution and/or frame-rate constraints. Any plans to do more of these emulation videos on games that never got a PC release, perhaps with one or of your friends and colleagues? Seems like a natural fit for more DF Retro content, like John's video on Motorstorm.
Same sentiments from me. :) It's unfortunate that RPCS3 can't do RDR justice quite yet. I have a high end rig, but it still is a stuttering mess. With Xenia (Canary) I was able to play the whole thing 4K/60+. It's just so hard to emulate PS3! But damn did it have a great catalog. One day in the future we're going to have enough brute force to make it work.
@@EmblemParade Yeah, some games do not run well, even with massive hardware. My 5800x and 3080 12GB system can't even run Motorstorm Pacific Rift smoothly at 1440p most of the time. Some games run great, though! I have been playing through Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction upscaled to 2880p to display on a 4K TV, and it runs mostly at 60FPS without issue! Considering the PS3 originally rendered it at (I think) 640p, the difference is MASSIVE and it's amazing how well the graphics hold up!
@@EmblemParade Did you have any flickering issues at that resolution/frame rate? If so, how did you resolve them? I'm having terrible flickering and, so far, only running at base resolution fixes it.
It sad to see they no longer going to use the Red Engine. It was an engine that took advantage of high numbers of cpus cores better than UE5 it seems. So it will sadly be gimped in that department.
@@notchedbandit Uhhh, that's the point of a REMAKE, you know, they'll re-make it? They'll make it better than it was. If it was a remaster then I'd agree with you.
This is exactly why 'FPS Boost' and 'Auto HDR' are such great features on Series X. Zero-config and no messing around... just load up your old games and BANG... you're suddenly playing them 4K@60fps with HDR.
Just tested it, definitely works. There were some hiccups in the intro cinematic every time the camera changed position. It's also very demanding on the cpu, it got nearly as hot as during Cinebench.
Emulation is essential for game preservation. It's not going to go away, and is actually growing - Vita emulation Flash games Jaguar CD Old mobile games
Some how their RDR announcement was even more disappointing than GTA Trilogy. Got it running perfectly fine at 4K 60fps, guess I'll just play it this way.
I can't believe Xenia already 10 years old... Just know bout it a year ago. Thanks to the modders community and xenia developers so we can enjoy rdr again with mods... Play as uncle, dutch, bonnie or any npc's , ride on animals and car too
@@indian_crocodile It pretty much is confirmed that it's coming we just don't know yet if it's a remake or remaster it even got a rating in some country.
16:09 With resolution scale over 1, xenia stops rendering rainfall effects, the only effects they remain are rain sounds and visuals on the ground and clouds but no visual raindrops falling from the sky. Only visable with 720p or lower.
A big key feature you didn't mention in the video is to set "frame rate limit from 60 to 0" if you want to fully unlock your fps. I had to find this myself looking through the configuration
Love the breakdown! Emulation is one of the main reasons I built a gaming PC last year, so I'd love to see more of these. For mouse/keyboard or general mapping compatibility I HIGHLY recommend this software called reWASD. There a ton of features, some of which you have to pay extra for, but by far I believe it to be the best way to emulate virtual controllers using mouse and keyboard and vice versa. For instance, I've got a really good controller config for Ready Or Not, which has no controller support.
I always appreciate the work that you all do and I know this channel focuses on video games, but I'd be super interested to see an analysis of TH-cam Premium's exclusive higher bitrate resolution option(s). Idk if it'll fall into the "biting the had that feeds" territory, but I doubt y'all make much from here anyway, so bite away I guess?
Did you noticed that anything above 720p seem to break the raindrops (or rather make them invisible) ? Seems to be the case around the 6 minute mark here as well. Only bug that really bothered me with this emulation set up -- since the rain effects are really great on this one. Otherwise pretty great way to experience this game.
man, those animations are beautiful. Most games nowadays can't even compete with a game from OVER A DECADE! Absolute props to their devs team, can't wait to see what GTA 6 will have in store for us.
While I agree, most games these days can't compare (RDR1 horses are far better than the vast majority of horses today other than RDR2), it's crazy how much better RDR2 is.
rdr remake gotta better chance at releasing within 2 years time from scratch for next and pc than gta 6, gta 6 probably won't release within next 3-4 years
Doesn't feel like it was 13 years ago since it was released. The first western game that did everything right with the characters, story, atmosphere and music.
sonic 06????? thanks for reminding me of that game's existance, anyways its on PC now so i don't see why you just emulate sonic unleashed instead given that game has no pc port
Ha! I just finished the game today doing exactly what you are suggesting. :) What a blast. This game is 13 years old but with emulation and community patches it looks as good as anything released this year, not so much for its technology but because its incredible visual design. That said ... animations and controls do show their age. Still, wow.
RE: The animation breaking - it's not caused by V-sync or CPU. It's caused by the Rage Engine freaking out when running above a certain FPS. The same thing happens with GTA V if you unlock the frame rate and let it run above a specific number (120+ I believe).
It's truly incredible how fast things are moving in the emulation scene. I am currently running the Switch version on the Yuzu emulator and with the caveat that there are a few scaled back graphics, it performs excellently on a Ryzen 7600x and RTX 3080, generally running between 70 and 120fps.
I don't think the game was meant to be run above 60fps, and certainly not 120fps. Certain things are thrown off at high FPS, like the timing of cutscenes
You absolutely need to use an out of game V-Sync/Frame rate cap. I was using the built in V-Sync for the longest time but the frame time goes all over the place like 33ms to 16.6ms every other frame
Amazing video, I hope it pops up for more people who are thinking about getting the "new" port. If you have the resources to do this, do it, it's probably the best way to experience the game nowadays, and you don't to give your precious money to a company that it is not what it used to be, and have been treating its community and IP's like trash. Thank you c: (Sorry for bad English, not my mother language)
I can vouch for the 1080p settings Alex specified running reasonably-nice on an i7-8700k machine with an RTX 2070 Super. Don't give up hope if you have slightly older hardware.
Amazing stuff! Ive been enjoying xenia canary build to this game since I dont have an xbox anymore but still have my disk copies of my favorite games. the darkness, rdr and oblivion all ran well on my 1080ti rig but after upgrading to the 4070 everything runs like a "dream" now. Would it be possible to make a comparison with the darkness on ps3 and xbox 360 emulation? I never had a ps3 but I was always amazed with the tech that the 1st game had and am interested on how they render on both platforms, they always looked different to me.
I’ve been only emulating games up to PS2 since it’s so reliable and accurate. Glad to see newer consoles emulate so well! It’s time to play some old Xbox 360 games.
Xenia-Canary fork is a blessing and kudos to the developers for being able to bring this beloved game back to us and playable in a way that is how you remember it in your but not the way it actually was lol.
It's insane to me how good Red Dead Redemption still look/can look. Imagine if the potential remaster adds weather effects and global illumination seen in RDR2.
It's a crime that this classic never made it to the PC natively.
Yeah, it was a shame. I remember hearing that the code for the game was a real mess, and after how much of a dumpster fire GTA 4's PC release was, I guess they decided to just skip it. It wasn't a great time to be a Rockstar fan on PC.
Glad they turned things around with Max Payne 3 which was a really solid port.
I just wish they'd do away with the superfluous social club.
well the crime will be solved
@@jytvreal it will soon
@@HeretixAevumyeah i heard rdr1 was had such a mess of a code they didnt even bother to port it.
@@airslashe9375Ngl i got a red dead at goodwill for 2$ poster and everything and a xbox 360 for 30$ with a controller i lucked out but man the aiming is so jank😭
I would love to see more emulation videos like this
Same
mee too
@@Puxi They cant do anything about emulation
Same
Yeah, me too!
I wish I could erase this game from my memory and start all over again. What a masterpiece.
That sentence is far more applicable to something like Outer Wilds. Playing this game "fresh" really doesn't make much of a difference.
I still haven't played this game.
@@FR4M3Sharmait's a great game overall with lots to do and experience, but don't expect too much from the story itself. Half of it is John saying "can I see my family now?" to everyone he meets.
@@orijimiwhat do you mean it doesn’t make a difference? it’s a story heavy game bro of course it makes a difference playing it for the first time.
@@gaanxd It's not at all a surprising story save for a couple minutes of its conclusion. Most of the game is just hitting the left trigger to lock on to targets with the accuracy of a terminator and pulling right trigger to act on that, with obstructions to firing rarely even present. The period of time you spend familiarizing/realizing how little nuance there is to the gameplay outside of the tertiary shit like hogtying happens easily inside of an hour. This game barely benefits from being forgotten.
I didn't know Xenia was this smooth already! A HUGE thank you to the amazing people working on this!
yooo hey Gurukid!!!
no problem bro
This and a few other games. However Xenia still struggles a lot more with compatibility and playability in many games
Yeah, a thousand thanks for the xenia developers and modders community, now we can enjoy rdr again with mods...
Xenia still have issues... FF13 crashes always on xenia which is why the native Version is superior
RDR is amazing on Xenia, I managed to complete the entire game at 4K resolution + 60fps on a RTX 4090, there were only dips in certain missions which was probably about 5% of my playthrough
Yeah, I play it with mods, so much fun than before
@@deadpaxred Any recommendations for best working mods?
still cant beleive if i buy the best card availible on the market, that i would be able to do the most computing with it!
@@mikeymaikuthe more you buy...
@@mikeymaiku still rocking a 1060 huh?
the graphics in RDR aged beautifully and it scales so well at 4k when emulated. its such a huge step up from the 360 with how its rendered that with those quality improvements alone, it still feels like a remaster
Meh
Yeah, I don't know. The polygons are so obvious at 4k it hurts. Would be interesting to see a 720p with an extreme form of AA to smooth things out tho.
No it doesn't, 4K doesn't solve geometry, models, textures, lighting, and effects, everything is still dated looking.
My take is that any game 6th and onward generally aged pretty well once you remove the resolution and frame rate limitations.
The only noticable improvement is shadows as those look to scale with resolution but even then they're too sharp for my liking. I prefer soft shadows rather than extremely sharp shadows. Not the same thing as low resolution shadows
You know rockstar fucked up when I’m here immediately after their big red dead reveal
Great video as always Alex! Tried RDR on Xenia some years ago, loved tinkering with it. Slight correction: RAGE's animation system is not Euphoria driven. Natural Motion Euphoria is a physicalised animation system that 'kicks in' when NPC's are hit with impact (horse, bullet, rope, etc). Basically they're 'active ragdolls', but with a simulated 'muscle and instinct/self-preservation' ai system, in fancy tech terms the concept is called: 'Dynamic Motion Synthesis'. Euphoria isn't active when the character is just walking or anything else. That 'heavy feeling' is because of R*'s strict use of animation priority and tweaking variables to make it feel heavy. Table Tennis for instance didn't include Euphoria, GTA IV was it's first use. It was really impressive at the time, and in some ways it still feels more 'next gen' then actual next gen games today for how sophisticated and dynamic it feels, especially with it's impressively detailed collision mesh, the number of characters simulated at the same time, running on such old hardware.
There is a Eurogamer article on the whole thing and why it's rarely used. (I'm a big fan of the tech since it early reveal in 2006/2007, and hoped it would end up in more games, which it never did. Although Ubisoft La Forge has been working on some impressive physics based animation tech. You should check out their neural network animation tech demos and papers. Can't send a link because of YT comments unfortunately). Keep up the great work!!
you should definitely give it another run today, experiencing RDR1 on better res and FPS really make the Euphoria ragdolls shine and made me realise that it was Rockstar's peak tbh, neither Max Payne 3 nor GTAIV was as complex with the procedural active ragdolls like RDR1.
Can I ask what you mean by animation priority? I just dont understand why other games that are also animation based for movement just didnt feel as heavy unless it's a deliberate design choice. RDR2 definitely suffered the most of it.
Would be interesting to know your thoughts on RDR2 as well since you sound like you know what you're talking about, and RDR2 actually had all the NM Euphoria parameters that were pretty much left empty on vanilla, but modders have made strides in implementing complex active ragdolls that transform the game. Recent developments in WERO's ragdoll overhaul has made RDR2's euphoria a genuine contender against RDR1 which was as good as we've gotten from NaturalMotion.
@@Jupa Animation priority is a deliberate design choice, meaning sacrificing input response for weighty animations that cannot be cancelled. You could make characters respond more quickly by tweaking values, but Rockstar deliberately chose presentation above responsive for immersion sake. Combining this with Euphoria's active ragdoll systems, which is deeply embedded into its implementation of Bullet physics engine (an open source solution) creates more possibility for emergent moments, which most dev's still haven't matched from a collision calculation complexity standpoint. For instance, in RDR2 you could hit your head on a tree branch, with quite accurate collision modeling from just one random tree. Thats technically quite amazing still. I'm usually not a big fan of animation priority in games, but the way Rockstar utilizes this to generate small emergent accidents is really impressive and underrated in my book. I personally wish games would lean more into this physicalised accuracy, instead of spending all that budget on incredibly looking games, but in reality are rather static from a interaction/possibility-space standpoint. These kinds of underlying simulation complexities are much harder/riskier to develop/invest in, as not every game needs such sophisticated collision modeling and simulational reactivity. Cyberpunk 2077, for example, looks incredible from a rendering fidelity standpoint, just leagues ahead of the competition. But their underlying physicalised simulation is incredibly rudimentary. (Again, really difficult to pull off, especially of you're base tech is not originally build for these kinds of simulational game-logic and collision systems). Something I wish Rockstar would pull a Carmack and just open sourced their tech, just so the other developers and the industry as a whole could learn from it. And raise the standard for collision complexity in games in general.
Looking ahead: Luckily, R&D branches like Ubisoft's La Forge tech team are actually trying to push stuff like this. Instead of mainly focusing on rendering leaps, they're focusing on simulational leaps, like physicalised animation and reactive environments with simplistic chemistry logic (instead of just Newtonian physics, basically gravity, like we're able to do for the last 20 years). And if you read their papers and watch their demo's, they're actually trying to make their tech universally compatible with multiple physics Middleware like Havok, Physx or Bullet. My personally hope is, that after Raytracing is normalized in general game-development, that next frontier is pushing physics stuff like this, (physicalised, reactive and adaptive animations and simulation fidelity)
@@JorisWeerts1 I think, other than R*, Capcom has really amazing collision dection and physics. Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Street Fighter have some insanely accurate hit/hurt boxes, weighted and impactful movement, and realistic collision interactions between player, enemy, and environment. From the way zombies fall down the stairs and trip over tables in RE2 remake, to the hunter rolling between a monsters legs in MH, or the way Leon can throw a grenade at a flying axe in RE4.
Very informative.
Thanks for this detailed info
3 Weeks ago: Emulation won’t be needed once the ‘remaster’ comes out.
Today: I forgot, it’s Rockstar. Just emulate it.
if u have a low end pc this game is almost unplayable
@@oozy1333 its going to get a lot better when the switch version releases, switch emulation is extremely mature compared to 360
@@bellehook are we talking aboout yuzu or ryujinx?
@@karadanianoII was talking about both, this comment was made before the game released on switch and which of the 2 emulators run better is usually decided on a per game basis. in this case it was ryujinx that ran better in rdr1, sometimes it could reach almost double the framerate of xenia in cutscenes. though as a mild downgrade you lose out on the sharpness that comes from MSAA on the 360 version
I played this game at a locked 1080p, 40fps on Xenia with a fan-made patch. It was so good I ended up buying RDR2 in the next Steam sale.
Edit - I was on a laptop with a Ryzen 9 5900HS, an RTX 3060 laptop GPU (80W TDP), and 16 GB of RAM.
what were your specs?
Were u able to finish the whole game?
2 is way better and Arthur is just a better character than John. I don't even want to play this.
My man enjoyed 2 masterpieces for the discounted price of one.
I played rdr2 first. It's incredible. Rdr1 is also amazing though, dont underestimate it.
This video aged very well.
It's so crazy to realize that this game was released in 2010. It was way ahead of its time
Not really, it just built on what GTA 4 already achieved with its open world. Rockstar were ahead of the game, and still are, as most open world games are nowhere near as interesting to walk around as GTA 4 which just turned 15.
i dont like the term ahead of time.
they just gave effort and soul into their game which lead it to be a timeless classic which cannot be said about the modern industry where they just try to complete games as fast as possible to sell they dont care about quality anymore
@@DriveCancelDCthe physics systems in gta 4 are still incredible, few games since have really topped it, including gta 5, I think they reduced the complexity to get gta 5 to run on the 360 and ps3, more of the frametime rendering budget had to be used on graphical fidelity instead of physics calculations.
@DriveCancelDC "Rockstar were ahead of the game" Yes, much like they said and now you also said, the game was ahead of its time
@@DriveCancelDC the story was ahead of its time
Great coverage. More emulation videos would be amazing, emulation is such a lovely thing.
It's tied to the framerate btw, the animation speed up. PSI-OPS the mindgate conspiracy breaks over a spesific fps basically 100fps, this game probably breaks over 120fps. has nothing to do with vsync or whether the cpu or gpu is limited. It has something to do with the calculations accuracy over a certain speed due to whatever equations they are using. turning on vsync can fix it because it limits the framerate to the screen and shortens the descrepency in the calculation results. Just thought I should mention it because this videos wording makes it seem like its unknown. I want people to understand the most common reason.
This is insanely common for older games. Especially with physics.
Yes it was strange DF talking about vsync and GPU usage over what was very clearly a framerate issue.
Yeah, they made it out to seem more complicated than it really was. The hardware usage has nothing to do with it, it's the framerate lol.
@@executable3 Yeah I Like DF alot, I just was Clarifying cause I'm an Enthusiast and I Mod old games all the time to get them working. There are other reasons too but frame rate and calculation error is the most common. Just like to share my knowledge. 🙂
massive brain fart
Maybe it says a lot about me but DF video upload= highlight of my day. Bathe me with DF's videos, be it performance analysis, port reviews or nostalgic discussions!
This vid made my Sunday today…thanks! Just finishing up my 2nd play-through of RDR2 tonight, and now I’m even more psyched to play the “sequel” next!
Who else watching this after the new Red Dead Redemption trailer launched.
Bruh I was skeptical to play the game on emulator but now that Rockstar games confirmed no PC port coming I'm just gonna enjoy the game in Emulator with even better experience.
Greatly appreciate your work on this! Truly amazed how the game visually improved by this emulation.
RDR has a color grading that is still unmatched by any game since. The sky color, clouds, fog and how they all blend together with the fields into the horizon. You squint a little and it's almost a real video.
RDR2 looks 'better' in a lot of ways, but the color grading felt more "cinematic" and "fantastical" than the 'real' that RDR feels.
You're not wrong, I was wondering with RDR2 if I had the cooling filter on my TV lol so blue
RDR2 is a blurry mess and it really detracts from the otherwise gorgeous visuals in my opinion. The TAA implementation is so god damn aggressive.
@@OutlawedPoetSolution: Nvidia Image sharpening or AMD CAS
@@KimJongUn_DPRK Control panel sharpening does wonders for clarity but it doesn't do anything about the ghosting unfortunately. Though combining TAA with FXAA seems to eliminate a lot of the trails for some reason
@@KimJongUn_DPRK sharpening a blurry image does not return the detail
All this RDR talk has been a blessing for trophy hunters. I just started playing the game a few weeks ago (what a masterpiece!!) and getting the online trophies has been easier than I thought. There's still a good chunk of players around.
Okay, Rockstar ruined the pc "REMASTER" that i've been waiting for, so I have to do this. Thanks!
How did they ruin the remaster? They literally never announced nor promised a “remaster”
@@meleeludens It was a basic requirement from them.
what was? define remaster, from your perspective @@JarringSteak
"Xenia" is pronounced "Zee-Nee-Ah", and named after the X360 development name, Xenon ("Zee-Non").
Xenon is actually 360’s CPU name
Now Double Eleven Studios made it in 4K 60fps on PS5.
RDR was the reason I bought my first Microsoft console. What a masterpiece.
Undead nightmare was amazing. One of the best dlcs of all time.
Don't forget GTA 4
"masterpiece' Yea sure bud, this game is far from a masterpiece. The successor of it though, saying masterpiece even for a million times doesn't suffice its beauty.
I’d love to see more modding/emulation videos like this
Yeah, thanks to the modders community and xenia developers so we can enjoy rdr again with mods... Play as uncle, dutch, bonnie or any npc's
This video hits different after the recent Rockstar announcement.
You can always count on DF to make videos really worth watching like this one. I was recently looking into emulating RDR so this will come in handy for sure. Appreciate it.
im kind of surprise he didnt go into detail on how to actually dump the game from the Xbox 360
@@matthewjuarbe5826 I think we all know how most people are going to acquire their disc image (regardless if they already own the physical disc.)
@@cts006 thats not the point Emulators are being attacked by Sony Microsoft and Nintendo due to these companies assume everyone is pirating which isnt the case and isnt why these emulators were created in the first place. so youtubers like Digital Foundry that have a influential following can help by showcasing piracy isnt the way to go to help these emulators survive. look what happen to skyline a young switch emulator for Android out of Fear Nintendo would go after them due to high users pirating amd the fact Nintnedo filed multiple DMCA for lockpick snd its alternative. skyline shut down. if linus tech tipscan sow the dumping process and many other youtubers that focus on technical gaming why cant digital foundry people
Don't forget "to remaster the game for yourself"!
@@matthewjuarbe5826 mean almost everyone is pirating these games but tell yourself what you need to. I don't see a problem with it considering most of the people downloading ps3/360 games bought them at some point anyway. Also it's really just Nintendo going after emulators, Sony and microsoft don't seem to care.
Played it at 30 FPS at 720p on my 1650 super a couple months ago. Definitely worth playing even if you don't have a high end pc. Excited to replay it with my 3080 ti.
So glad to hear it works that way! I played at 4K/60+ but I have a 5800X3D/4090, which of course I realize is stupidly expensive. But I'm a firm believer that you can thoroughly enjoy games with a lot less. I'm so happy to know that emulation has finally caught up and allows for people to enjoy this game without having to buy the original hardware. It has aged very, very well.
@@EmblemParadeCan I get good perf with my 10900k and 4080 Gaming OC ?
Thank you
@@kevinlamentale Are you serious? YES
@@kevinlamentale No way you're asking when you have the 2nd best GPU in the market rn wtf LMAO
Did it have shader stutter?
And now just a month later, the game runs even better out the gate on Yuzu and Ryujinx than Xenia! Emulation is truly one of the greatest achievements in gaming.
thank you, after being disappointed yet again i will feel no guilt emulating a pirated version
just kidding ofcourse
Unless...👀
@@yatsu666who u trying to fiol 😂😂
@@Name-tn3md pinkertons
I wonder what wattage Alex’s PC is burning to get this game running at 4k/60, my guess, we’ll north of 600W no doubt.
Great video Alex. This masterpiece deserves an official and proper remaster/remake. 👊🏽
This video aged SO well after this week's announcement
What was the announcement?
@@DeuxCheeseRDR remaster I guess, but judging by how bad GTA trilogy remaster was, I think it would be better to just emulate the game😂
@@racingjets1 Just finished my playthrough on the Xenia emulator, it was just as great as in 2010. 60 fps was nice as well. Gonna plow through Undead Nightmare now which I also enjoyed when it released. Honestly the emulator worked so well I don't think a re-release is needed.
What’s the announcement? This seems like sarcasm but I don’t see any news that it’s getting ported to PC.
@@DetectiveMikeHunt. The announcement was a re-release for nintendo switch and PS4. If you want to play it on PC I would highly recommend the Xenia emulator, you can get a smooth fps which makes the experience much better.
This video is great. Refreshing, VERY informative. Thank you Alex, your work is amazing.
Aaaaand it ended up being better this way than the official "remastered" version (only ps4, switch and 30 fps)
Who's here after the announcement of the red dead port 💀
Who in their right mind would pay probably over $50 for a 13 year old Port
@@christianmiller6849if it was 30 I could see it just being a direct port with a slight res bump for switch because it's so underpowered but for PS4 there's nothing to justify a direct port
No native pc port even after all these years 💀💀💀💀
Ooohhh it got ported to the Nintendo Switch where it runs on 25 FPS💀
@@source6893it runs at stable 30, if it was so bad you wouldn't need to lie about it.
Really would love to see more videos about Emulators. They have so many options that can change the way games perform and look!
"Oh yeah, it's Redemptioning time" - John Marston
Super appreciate the help at the end, made my Xenia experience *MUCH* better.
This is more reasons I will forever ❤ DF
Going online for the first time in 2010, meeting new players, joining a posse and exploring Tall Trees in the dead of night. Snow falling, finding the small cabin in the Forrest where the cougars were.
Such magical times.
Thanks for the coverage. I completed this game some months ago in Xenia canary. Things that I couldn't do back then in my friend's 360 lmao. Stellar experience, I would say and the game didn't overstay its welcome at all.
Can't believe John called remastering/remaking this game a "waste of time". This is one of Rockstar's greatest games.
To be fair, John has some of the absolute worst opinions on DF. He seems to care about complete and utter image stability at the cost of clarity and fps. An RDR1 port would probably run too well so he couldn't complain about it not having a 30fps cap and higher motion blur shutter speed.
Or maybe we are just stick to death of £70 remakes and would like, oh I don't know, a new IP maybe.
@@AJ-xv7oh AAA companies are terrible at coming up with new IPs. All they want are GaaS games with MTX-riddled multiplayers. I'd rather get "£70 remakes" of beloved games that are stuck on old hardware, instead of garbage GaaS games.
I love his goofy ass but yeah he would say some shit like "oh boy ecco the dolphin 3 DX adventure 2 from the genesis is getting a remaster and its looking FANTASTIC" and trash a RDR1 remake
Aaaaaah, 0:00 The "Far Away" moment, easily one of my favourite gaming moments ever.
Flat-out masterpiece.
Escaping to mexico, riding back to your ranch and the showdown at the ranch are still some of the best gaming moments ever.
Excellent video! Crazy how good RDR still looks. I wonder how it looks on Steam Deck since that’s probably where I’ll replay it.
Also good to know to use Xenia (vs RPCS3) for this particular title.
Instant goosebumps when Far Away starts playing
What a great game
Thank you so much this is by far my favorite game and I really wanted to play on pc. I really hope the remake is real so more people can experience why we all fell in love with this series decades ago.
I love emulation, one of the best reasons to get into PC gaming.
I’d love to try it but I’m terrible on a pc 😢
Been replaying games from my PS3 library over the last couple years in RPCS3, and it's amazing how well games from that era hold up when you fix the resolution and/or frame-rate constraints. Any plans to do more of these emulation videos on games that never got a PC release, perhaps with one or of your friends and colleagues? Seems like a natural fit for more DF Retro content, like John's video on Motorstorm.
Same sentiments from me. :) It's unfortunate that RPCS3 can't do RDR justice quite yet. I have a high end rig, but it still is a stuttering mess. With Xenia (Canary) I was able to play the whole thing 4K/60+. It's just so hard to emulate PS3! But damn did it have a great catalog. One day in the future we're going to have enough brute force to make it work.
@@EmblemParade Yeah, some games do not run well, even with massive hardware. My 5800x and 3080 12GB system can't even run Motorstorm Pacific Rift smoothly at 1440p most of the time. Some games run great, though! I have been playing through Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction upscaled to 2880p to display on a 4K TV, and it runs mostly at 60FPS without issue! Considering the PS3 originally rendered it at (I think) 640p, the difference is MASSIVE and it's amazing how well the graphics hold up!
@@EmblemParade Did you have any flickering issues at that resolution/frame rate? If so, how did you resolve them? I'm having terrible flickering and, so far, only running at base resolution fixes it.
@@hatchetman3662 Sorry, did not have that problen
@@EmblemParade Alright, well thank you for replying.
There is also Nintendo Switch Emulation of Red dead which now gets you up to and over 60fps as well.
Love how you guys started doing emulation videos. Keep it up
The horse animations also seem sped up, thats probably why it feels more responsive on your emulation
RDR and Witcher remakes are gonna be great. I missed both these games back in the day.
Witcher was terrible. A remake won't fix that.
rdr won't be REMADE
@@notchedbanditwell will you look at that, a living contradiction!
It sad to see they no longer going to use the Red Engine. It was an engine that took advantage of high numbers of cpus cores better than UE5 it seems. So it will sadly be gimped in that department.
@@notchedbandit Uhhh, that's the point of a REMAKE, you know, they'll re-make it? They'll make it better than it was.
If it was a remaster then I'd agree with you.
alex:
when talking about starfield : 30 fps is not too bad, its cool guys chill
when talking about Red dead: 30 fps feels drunken
the duality of men.
Its a shame the shadows become very pixelated when playing at 4k
Very Nice. I had not noticed Bonnie on the Train ride-at start ..but then I didn't know here yet. Great Vid
DF showcasing Emulation is pretty revolutionary - well done!
This is exactly why 'FPS Boost' and 'Auto HDR' are such great features on Series X.
Zero-config and no messing around... just load up your old games and BANG... you're suddenly playing them 4K@60fps with HDR.
Fps boost will downscale all games to 1080p, often lower
Just tested it, definitely works. There were some hiccups in the intro cinematic every time the camera changed position. It's also very demanding on the cpu, it got nearly as hot as during Cinebench.
Emulation is amazing and such a treasure. I really hope it continues to grow and improve.
Emulation is essential for game preservation.
It's not going to go away, and is actually growing -
Vita emulation
Flash games
Jaguar CD
Old mobile games
@@AdmiralBison Yup, Emulation has always been a huge part of what I like about gaming.
Some how their RDR announcement was even more disappointing than GTA Trilogy. Got it running perfectly fine at 4K 60fps, guess I'll just play it this way.
This game is a must play!! The story and world building are phenomenal!!
Good thing that they are remastering this game
@@somecanadianboy667 not confirmed
I can't believe Xenia already 10 years old... Just know bout it a year ago. Thanks to the modders community and xenia developers so we can enjoy rdr again with mods... Play as uncle, dutch, bonnie or any npc's , ride on animals and car too
@@indian_crocodile It pretty much is confirmed that it's coming we just don't know yet if it's a remake or remaster it even got a rating in some country.
@@somecanadianboy667 That "remaster" on the PS4 is so lazy it's just better to emulate it if you have a solid PC instead
16:09 With resolution scale over 1, xenia stops rendering rainfall effects, the only effects they remain are rain sounds and visuals on the ground and clouds but no visual raindrops falling from the sky. Only visable with 720p or lower.
I love how we're now seeing a sort of rivalry/competition between the 360 and PS3 emulators. Sort of feels like it did back in the 7th Gen lol.
Man i love the modding and emulation community! They are really the champions of game preservation!
And it’s just a port after all, great job Rockstar. 🙄
No PC release either.
I won't be surprised if it turns out to be much better than already announced R*'s port on next-gen consoles (PS4/PS5)
A big key feature you didn't mention in the video is to set "frame rate limit from 60 to 0" if you want to fully unlock your fps. I had to find this myself looking through the configuration
when fans make a better remaster then rockstar themselves
Love the breakdown! Emulation is one of the main reasons I built a gaming PC last year, so I'd love to see more of these. For mouse/keyboard or general mapping compatibility I HIGHLY recommend this software called reWASD. There a ton of features, some of which you have to pay extra for, but by far I believe it to be the best way to emulate virtual controllers using mouse and keyboard and vice versa. For instance, I've got a really good controller config for Ready Or Not, which has no controller support.
I always appreciate the work that you all do and I know this channel focuses on video games, but I'd be super interested to see an analysis of TH-cam Premium's exclusive higher bitrate resolution option(s). Idk if it'll fall into the "biting the had that feeds" territory, but I doubt y'all make much from here anyway, so bite away I guess?
The fact that this version is better than the official "remaster" is a fucking crime
Wild how much better RDR looks on 360, that thing was a beast!
Rockstar won't do it so fine, I'll do it myself
Did you noticed that anything above 720p seem to break the raindrops (or rather make them invisible) ? Seems to be the case around the 6 minute mark here as well. Only bug that really bothered me with this emulation set up -- since the rain effects are really great on this one. Otherwise pretty great way to experience this game.
man, those animations are beautiful. Most games nowadays can't even compete with a game from OVER A DECADE!
Absolute props to their devs team, can't wait to see what GTA 6 will have in store for us.
While I agree, most games these days can't compare (RDR1 horses are far better than the vast majority of horses today other than RDR2), it's crazy how much better RDR2 is.
@@barrettNZ True, the only other note-worthy horse i can remember is D-horse from Metal gear solid V
rdr remake gotta better chance at releasing within 2 years time from scratch for next and pc than gta 6, gta 6 probably won't release within next 3-4 years
@@barrettNZI never played RDR2, but the BOTW/TOTK horses are a billion times better than RDR's
Doesn't feel like it was 13 years ago since it was released. The first western game that did everything right with the characters, story, atmosphere and music.
I used Xenia to emulate Sonic 06 recently (for reasons) and was super surprised at how stable and problem free it was. Awesome project.
You should try Project 06 instead. Makes that game so much better
sonic 06????? thanks for reminding me of that game's existance, anyways its on PC now so i don't see why you just emulate sonic unleashed instead given that game has no pc port
Ha! I just finished the game today doing exactly what you are suggesting. :) What a blast. This game is 13 years old but with emulation and community patches it looks as good as anything released this year, not so much for its technology but because its incredible visual design. That said ... animations and controls do show their age. Still, wow.
Many games released now still cannot beat Euphoria animation and physics quality. Because nowadays it's all bout the graphics sadly.
Godbless alex.. great video.. more emulation stuff pls
Better than Rockstar's Official "Port".
Go on. Explain how
@@meleeludens120fps
@@meleeludens Go on, explain why not
@@meleeludens not $50, uncapped framerate, and on PC. That's how its better
@@somnia3423/thread
RE: The animation breaking - it's not caused by V-sync or CPU. It's caused by the Rage Engine freaking out when running above a certain FPS.
The same thing happens with GTA V if you unlock the frame rate and let it run above a specific number (120+ I believe).
Can you lock frame rate to 60 then?
@@rt3rog Yes, just cap it below the number it breaks (you'll have to research what that is).
Wow this video was so cool. When you own a disc, you can play a game for decades.
It's truly incredible how fast things are moving in the emulation scene. I am currently running the Switch version on the Yuzu emulator and with the caveat that there are a few scaled back graphics, it performs excellently on a Ryzen 7600x and RTX 3080, generally running between 70 and 120fps.
Meanwhile I’m running it on my MacBook. PC gaming truly is bonkers.
I don't think the game was meant to be run above 60fps, and certainly not 120fps. Certain things are thrown off at high FPS, like the timing of cutscenes
You absolutely need to use an out of game V-Sync/Frame rate cap. I was using the built in V-Sync for the longest time but the frame time goes all over the place like 33ms to 16.6ms every other frame
Amazing video, I hope it pops up for more people who are thinking about getting the "new" port. If you have the resources to do this, do it, it's probably the best way to experience the game nowadays, and you don't to give your precious money to a company that it is not what it used to be, and have been treating its community and IP's like trash. Thank you c:
(Sorry for bad English, not my mother language)
I can vouch for the 1080p settings Alex specified running reasonably-nice on an i7-8700k machine with an RTX 2070 Super. Don't give up hope if you have slightly older hardware.
truly a masterpiece
here after rockstar announced the joke of a port
Amazing stuff! Ive been enjoying xenia canary build to this game since I dont have an xbox anymore but still have my disk copies of my favorite games. the darkness, rdr and oblivion all ran well on my 1080ti rig but after upgrading to the 4070 everything runs like a "dream" now. Would it be possible to make a comparison with the darkness on ps3 and xbox 360 emulation? I never had a ps3 but I was always amazed with the tech that the 1st game had and am interested on how they render on both platforms, they always looked different to me.
14:38 an uncontrollable calm washed over me when I saw notepad++
I’ve been only emulating games up to PS2 since it’s so reliable and accurate. Glad to see newer consoles emulate so well! It’s time to play some old Xbox 360 games.
This game in 60fps, at last.
Game of my life, can't wait for a new version to enjoy it again
Xenia-Canary fork is a blessing and kudos to the developers for being able to bring this beloved game back to us and playable in a way that is how you remember it in your but not the way it actually was lol.
Wasn't there a fan made texture pack that got shut down by Rockstar?
this vid hits a lot different after the new the past few days
Thank you so much for pointing this out! I'm excited to finally finish this game! Thankfully, my PC can run this pretty well.
It's insane to me how good Red Dead Redemption still look/can look. Imagine if the potential remaster adds weather effects and global illumination seen in RDR2.